Saskatoon HayLoft Blog

The adventure of singer/songwriter Carrie Catherine and developer Curtis P. Olson converting a 1935 grocery store into their residence, performance space, office and creative retreat.
The renovation ran 12 months and was finished Oct 4, 2008 but, as a wise man once said, a home is never finished....

Interior Panorama

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Elvis the chair, that is. This was designed and build by Tom Ray, a Saskatoon artist. The actual piece is named "Wahoo".

When we stumbled across it at an opening at the Darrell Bell Gallery, Carrie and I both laughed because we instantly knew that it was perfect for the HayLoft. Darrell was even kind enough to deliver it in exchange for a tour of the house.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

This is my favorite photo of Eliot Olson, taken just 3 days after he was born. The photo is taken in Carrie's barn/office and Eliot is laying on our chair Elvis, which was made by local furniture designer and artist Tom Rae.

We've just added two great pieces from Marie to our art collection. These are in the Grain Elevator (my office) where the north facing windows cast a beautifully soft and diffuse light that helps show the unbelievable color depth that Marie is renowned for.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Nov 5, 2009 saw the long awaited installation of our skylight on the HayLoft.

The original plans called for the skylight because the kitchen is located in the middle of the building limiting natural southern light into the space. In addition to this, we've found that the combination of some dark colors and the exposed fir roof, while making the home very cozy and warm, tend to soak up a lot of the light that does enter the home.

So we pulled the trigger and managed to do the entire project in one day thanks to Ken Heath, my go-to-guy for renovations, and Western Urethane who came out to do the spray foam and waterproofing on the exterior of the skylight.

The end result has been to make two major improvements to the home: first, we get FLOODED with beautiful diffuse daylight all day long now and, secondly, we now have opening windows up high that will help with the natural ventilation in the summers and during house concerts.